Tuesday, November 8, 2011

My Unemployment Experience

These past 6 weeks of unemployment, through God's grace, have opened my eyes to so many things. I wanted to announce that as of Thursday I will be officially, EMPLOYED! Thank you Jesus! Many of you are wondering where and are eagerly awaiting all the juicy details of this new adventure I will be facing.

I will be working at a company called Sodexo. Sodexo runs cafeteria's for business buildings. This way the employee's can go to a cafeteria in their own building instead of running out to find lunch. The beauty of it is I will be working in the cafeteria at my old company, American Family Insurance! I already know the majority of the people there and I am excited to work alongside of them once again.

This will be a Full-Time permanent position, no more temping for me! Hooray! The pay is good, and people even better! This will be a turn in a different direction then my other previous jobs. I will be the cashier there.

Now that your curiosity has been relieved, I want to tell you all the amazing things I have learned during this time of unemployment. Stay tuned, this could potentially take a few paragraphs.

When I left American Family on Sept, 30th. I was still shocked that I was actually leaving a job that I loved so much, and there was nothing I could do about it. The following Monday, I woke up and as I lay there in bed peering over to check the time, I thought to myself, "I should be at work right now" I knew exactly where I would be if I was working that day, down to the minute. The familiarity was inescapable. Finances where a different story. Unfortunately I had hardly any money saved, and tons of bills to be paid. I financially couldn't afford even a week of unemployment. Somehow, though nothing made sense, I told God, "I trust you". And you know what? He pulled through in bigger way than I could have ever imagined.

Days went by, a few more days. Days turned into weeks, I had already been turned down by any of the jobs I had applied for. Nothing was seeming to work. Yet, November 1st kept creeping closer bringing with it a whole bucket load of bills to pay with hardly any money to my name. Any groceries I had, had been depleted, and the gas I had in my car was exhausted. It was that day, I received in the mail two cards in two separate envelopes. Each card had a verse typed inside, one of which was:

"Therefore I tell you , do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Matthew 6:25-27

Inside each card there was a verse typed inside, and some cash. I was so shocked! Completely amazed, and still to this day have no idea who it was. If it was you, I want to say, "THANK YOU!" You will never know how much that meant to me. These cards turned out to be a huge inspiration to me. The verses were so helpful.

Trust, a five letter word that means more than the human mind can sometimes grasp. I had no where else to turn, bills to be paid, no money, with not even a hint of a job prospect in sight. November 1st came, and I still had no job. The bills had come, and still had no money to pay them. Yet, somehow through out all of this, I had been filled with such, Peace. God had given me so much Peace, it was so overwhelming, worry had no place in my life. I will admit to there being moments where worry did creep in, but I told my self, "God has my back, He will take care of me. He knows my situation, He has taken care of me before, and He will do it again. He won't stop now." Worry and unemployment didn't stand a chance against my God. Miraculously, I was able to pay my bills. I was even about to lose my phone service when God came through and miraculously made a way for it to be paid. He orchestrated the WHOLE thing! He came and saved the day! I knew my God would have my back!

One day, out of the blue, I got a call from Katie at Sodexo asking if I would like to come in and talk about a potential job opportunity for me. After playing phone tag a few times here and there, we finally set a date and I came in for an interview last Friday. She offered me a position I couldn't refuse! I accepted it on Monday and start on Thursday. I never even applied for this position and it just landed in my lap. If that isn't GOD, none of this would have happened! I am so blessed, exceedingly blessed. Never have I felt so loved, never have I seen God more than I do now. God is my everything, no job, no money, no talent is standing in the way between us. I love Him. He's been using people here and there to encourage me, to help me, to be there for me, and to most of all intercede in prayer for me. My friends, I am so proud of them, they have been checking in on me, blessing me, and praying for me.

God, my precious God, He is so amazing. I trust Him now more than ever. A feeling even I didn't know I could possess. The Peace He poured on me, never left. And most of all, HE never left. He stood by me, day by day, minute by minute, and saw me through. I, because of my past have always had a very hard time having a significant time allotted for being alone. I was home every day and so many things could have gone wrong, but God stayed with me, gave me Peace, curved my temptations and made each day a relaxing and precious day. I actually had a great time being unemployed. It drew me closer to God, I wouldn't trade that in a million years.